September 2019  
 
The FAS Research Development group publishes this monthly Funding Newsletter for SEAS faculty and researchers. The newsletter includes notable Federal, private, and internal Harvard funding opportunities.  You are receiving this newsletter because you are subscribed to our mailing list. All Harvard University faculty and administrators may subscribe here, and you may unsubscribe at any time. In addition, you may access the Science Division Funding Spotlight here. Visit our email archive to see our past newsletters. 
 
Questions?
Erin Hale: erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu | 617-496-5252
Jennifer Corby: jcorby@fas.harvard.edu | 617-495-1590  
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News, Announcements, & Special Features

Feature: N ew Investigator Opportunity Spotlight
Quick links to early career opportunities in this month's newsletter.
News:  FY2020 Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Program now accepting applications

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP) is now accepting applications for FY2020 from faculty members interested in conducting research at Air Force Research Labs/Centers. This opportunity offers hands-on exposure to faculty members at U.S. colleges and universities to perform high-quality and meaningful research in the science, technology, mathematics, and engineering fields at AFRL Directorates, Air Force Test Centers (AFTC), the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), or the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) during the summer months (May through September) for an 8- to 12-week period. Research Fellows are highly encouraged to bring a graduate student with them for the research period.  Graduate student applications must be completed and submitted to the faculty advisor to be uploaded as a part of their application proposal.  For eligibility requirements, please see   http://afsffp.sysplus.com/SFFP/about/eligibility.aspx .
 
Qualified applicants may apply any time throughout the application process that will run from September 1 through November 29, 2019. Information on all aspects of the program can be found on the AFRL SFFP website.

News: Upcoming Deadline for DARPA Young Faculty Award

DARPA's Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior faculty positions and expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security challenges and needs. DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in specific areas of interest to DARPA's six technical offices: Biological Technologies Office (BTO), Defense Sciences Office (DSO), Information Innovation Office (I2O), Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), Strategic Technology Office (STO), and Tactical Technology Office (TTO). Learn more here.

News: Upcoming Pre-Proposal Deadline for NSF Major Instrumentation Program (MRI)

The Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program supports the acquisition or development of a multi-user research instrument that is, in general, too costly and/or not appropriate for support through other NSF programs. To be considered for a Harvard nomination, potential applicants from FAS and SEAS must first submit a pre-proposal. Learn more here.

Funding Opportunities

Click on the links below to read a program synopsis
 Indicates an UPDATED or NEW opportunity added this month

Foundation Opportunities
Internal Opportunities
Industry/Corporate Opportunities
U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)   
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
National Science Foundation: Dear Colleague Letters
National Science Foundation: Directorate for Computer & Information Science and Engineering (NSF: CISE)  
National Science Foundation: Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (NSF: MPS)
National Science Foundation: Directorate for Engineering (NSF: ENG)
National Science Foundation: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary

Foundation Opportunities
Fdn_SimonsTargeted
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 18, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: September 25, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $200,000 per year for up to five years, which includes 20% per year in indirect costs to the institution. The foundation expects to award up to three grants each year.
 
This program is intended to support established institutes or centers in mathematics, theoretical physics and theoretical computer science through funding to help strengthen contacts within the international scientific community. The aim is to enable institutes to extend and enhance their missions; this program will not provide primary support for operating or establishing an institute. Examples of institutes and activities the foundation is currently supporting through this program can be found in the Awardees list .
Fdn_SimonsMath
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 19, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: September 26, 2019
Award Amount: Salary replacement for up to 50 percent (up to a maximum of $100,000) of the Fellow's current academic-year salary and up to $10,000 for expenses related to the leave. The Fellow's home institution will receive an additional 20 percent overhead on allowable expenses. The foundation expects to award up to 40 mathematics fellowships each year.
 
The Simons Foundation's Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MPS) division invites applications for the Simons Fellows in Mathematics program, which is intended to make sabbatical research leaves more productive by extending them to a full academic year. Awards will be based on the applicant's scientific accomplishments in the five-year period preceding the application and on the potential scientific impact of the work to be done during the leave period.
 
Fellowship awards and sabbatical periods may begin no earlier than January 1, 2020, and no later than January 1, 2021. The award and the sabbatical period must finish no later than December 31, 2021.

Simons_TheoPhysics
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 19, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: September 26, 2019
Award Amount: Salary replacement for up to 50 percent (up to a maximum of $100,000) of the Fellow's current academic-year salary and up to $25,000 for expenses related to the leave. The Fellow's home institution will receive an additional 20 percent overhead on allowable expenses. The foundation expects to award up to eight theoretical physics fellowships for 2020.
 
The Simons Foundation's Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MPS) division invites applications for the Simons Fellows in Theoretical Physics program, which is intended to make sabbatical leaves more productive by extending them to a full academic year. Awards will be based on the applicant's scientific accomplishments in the five-year period preceding the application and on the potential scientific impact of the work to be done during the leave period.
 
Fellowship awards and sabbatical periods may begin no earlier than January 1, 2020, and no later than January 1, 2021. The award and the sabbatical period must finish no later than December 31, 2021.
Fdn_eukaryotic
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 23, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: September 30, 2019
Award Amount: Award sizes have not been pre-determined at this stage; the grant aims to match budgets to project needs. I ndividuals and/or teams will be supported for two- to three-year research efforts.
 
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and Simons Foundation are partnering to support novel research on the origin of the eukaryotic cell, including understanding the processes that may have led to the emergence of the first eukaryotic common ancestor (FECA) and how FECA evolved into the last eukaryotic common ancestor (LECA). The goal is to support creative individuals and collaborative teams to take risks in developing novel theoretical, informatic and experimental approaches that deepen understanding of the creation of the eukaryotic domain of life.  Studies centered on the diversification of eukaryotes and other post-LECA events are outside the scope of this funding opportunity. Proposals without direct connection to eukaryogenesis and applied research are also ineligible.
 
S cientists and engineers from a wide range of disciplines are encouraged to submit a proposal, including those who have not previously worked on this topic. Numerous disciplines and approaches have important contributions to make, including but not limited to cell biology, evolution, ecology, earth and aquatic sciences, paleontology, genomics, bioinformatics, synthetic biology, biophysics and chemistry.
Fdn_SimonsMathPSci
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: February 6, 2019
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline (if invited): February 13, 2020
Award Amount: up to $2M per year for an initial period of 4 years (includes up to 20% per year for indirect costs). The foundation expects to award up to two collaborations in 2020.
 
The aim of the Simons Collaborations in MPS program is to stimulate progress on fundamental scientific questions of major importance in mathematics, theoretical physics and theoretical computer science. A Simons Collaboration in MPS should address a mathematical or theoretical topic of fundamental scientific importance, where a significant, new development creates a novel area for exploration or provides a new direction for progress in an established field. The questions addressed by the collaboration may be concrete or conceptual, but there should be little doubt that answering them would constitute a major scientific milestone. The project should have clearly defined initial activities and goals by which progress and success can be measured. The support from the foundation should be seen as critical for the objectives of the project.
 
The scientific impact of the collaboration will be evaluated at the year-four annual meeting and an extension of three additional years may be granted. The foundation would allow the annual budget to vary from $2 million as long as the total four-year budget is no more than $8 million.
 
Each collaboration must be led by a collaboration director; the collaboration director must hold a tenured faculty, or equivalent, position at a U.S. or Canadian educational institution with a Ph.D. program in the director's department at the time of application. PIs and co-Investigators (co-Is) must hold a tenured or tenure-track faculty, or equivalent, position at an educational institution at the time of application. There are no restrictions on the department and/or discipline of the director or PIs/co-Is. PIs, co-Is and other collaboration participants may be from non-U.S. institutions. An active PI on a currently funded collaboration project cannot be part of an LOI or proposal. Additionally, active Math+X Investigators cannot be funded PIs in a collaboration.
Fdn_US-Israel
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 13, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: November 20, 2019
Award    Amount   : up to $250,000 for up to 4 years

The U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) promotes scientific relations between the U.S. and Israel by supporting collaborative research projects in a 
wide area of basic and applied scientific fields for peaceful and non-profit purposes. The BSF Research Grants program funds both U.S. and Israeli scientists who wish to work together. Applications must be submitted together by at least one scientist from each country. In 2019, the following areas of research are eligible for submission:
  • Biomedical Engineering: Biological Systems and Signals, Control Systems and Imaging; Biomechanics; and Tissue Engineering, Stem Cells and Biotechnolgy.
  • Life Sciences: Animal Sciences; Biochemistry; Cell and Developmental Biology; Ecology; Genetics, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; Immunology; Microbiology; Molecular Biology and Genomic Research; Neurobiology; and Plant Sciences.
  • Medicine: Aging, Social and Rehabilitative Medicine, Epidemiology; Cancer; Cardiology, Blood and Respiratory Systems; Child and Human Health, Human Development, Fertility; Cytoskeleton and Support Systems; Infectious & Immunological diseases; Metabolic and Endocrine Systems; and Neurological and Sensory Systems.
  • Psychobiology: Animal Learning and Behavior; Behavioral Genetics; Brain and Behavior; Evolutionary Psychology; Immunoneuropsychology; and Neuropsychology.
Fdn_cancer
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (required): November 15, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: March 9, 2020
Full Proposal Deadline: March 16, 2020
Award Amount: up to $200,000
 
The Cancer Research Institute Technology Impact Award provides seed funding to be used over 12-24 months to address the gap between technology development and clinical application of cancer immunotherapies. These grants aim to encourage collaboration between technology developers and clinical cancer immunologists and to generate the proof-of-principle of a novel platform technology in bioinformatics, ex vivo or in silico modeling systems, immunological or tumor profiling instrumentation, methods, reagents and assays, or other relevant technologies that can enable clinician scientists to generate deeper insights into the mechanisms of action of effective or ineffective cancer immunotherapies.
 
The grant will be awarded to a scientist who describes an extraordinarily novel, yet practical research plan that is creative and technically sophisticated. Applicants must hold a faculty appointment as a tenure-track assistant professor (or higher rank) at the time of award activation.
Fdn_HHMI
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: December 23, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: January 8, 2020 by 3 PM
Award Amount: Fellows may receive up to $1.4 million each and be supported for up to eight years.
Eligibility:  Applicants must hold a PhD and/or MD (or equivalent), which must be conferred by the start of the grant term. Applicants must have been accepted to join a laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher at the time of the application due date. Applicants can have no more than 16 months of postdoctoral research experience at the time of the application due date.
 
Through the Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program, HHMI seeks to increase diversity in biomedical science by recruiting and retaining individuals from gender, racial, ethnic, and other groups underrepresented in the life sciences. The competition is open to early career scientists dedicated to basic research from both doctoral and/or medical training paths in the biomedical and life science disciplines, including plant biology, evolutionary biology, biophysics, chemical biology, biomedical engineering, and computational biology. The program provides opportunities for career development, including mentoring and networking with others in the HHMI scientific community. The Institute will select and support up to 15 fellows in this competition. Awards can start as early as September 15, 2020, but no later than January 19, 2021.
 
Fellows will receive funding for postdoctoral training and may continue to receive funding during their early career years as independent faculty. Fellows in both the postdoctoral training and faculty phases are required to devote at least 75% of their total effort to research.
 
  • Postdoctoral Training Phase: Fellows will receive an annual salary of $70,000 for the initial year and a $20,000 expense allowance. It is anticipated that an annual 3% salary increase will be provided in each subsequent training year. This phase of the award is for a minimum of two and a maximum of four years.
  • Faculty Phase: To transition to the faculty phase of the program, fellows must obtain a tenure-track (or equivalent) faculty position at a U.S. research institution with a doctoral-level graduate program in their area of interest. Fellows will receive $250,000 in research funding and a $20,000 expense allowance per year. This phase of the award has a maximum length of four years.
Simons_mps
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: A typical Targeted Grant in MPS provides funding for up to five years. The funding provided is flexible and based on the type of support requested in the proposal. There is no recommended funding limit.
 
The Simons Foundation division for Mathematics and Physical Sciences seeks to extend the frontiers of basic research. The division's primary focus is on mathematics, theoretical physics and theoretical computer science. This program is intended to support high-risk projects of exceptional promise and scientific importance on a case-by-case basis. Expenses for experiments, equipment, or computations, as well as for personnel and travel, are allowable. If invited to submit a full proposal, the deadline will be noted in the LOI notification and will be no sooner than three months from the date of the LOI approval.

Internal Opportunities
Blavatnik
Pre-Proposal Deadlines: September 16, 2019 for Pilot applications and December 20, 2019 for Development and Pilot applications
Award Amount: $100,000 for 1 year for Pilot grants; $300,000 for 2 years for Development grants
 
The Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator at Harvard University provides essential gap funding, development support, and business expertise to help faculty investigators achieve the full potential of their work. The Accelerator seeks to support innovative, investigator-initiated research, and to develop preliminary observations into robust intellectual property positions. Its primary goal is to advance technologies to the point where an industry partnership can commence. Proposals are welcomed from Harvard principal investigators with early-stage research in a range of life science areas, including therapeutics, diagnostics, drug delivery technologies, medical devices/instruments, and enabling technologies for drug discovery.
 
Harvard Office of Technology Development (OTD) staff will work with applicants to develop a pre-proposal. Only one pre-proposal per applicant will be accepted per cycle. Based on recommendations from the Accelerator Advisory Committee and OTD, a subset of applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal. Questions about this opportunity may be directed to Anu Natarajan (anuradha_natarajan@harvard.edu) or blavatnik_accelerator@harvard.edu.

Internal_RadcliffeFellow
Deadline: October 3, 2019 for applications in science, engineering, and mathematics
Award Amount: Fellows receive a stipend of $77,500 plus an additional $5,000 to cover project expenses.

The Radcliffe Fellowship Program awards 50 fellowships each academic year. Radcliffe fellows are exceptional scientists, writers, scholars, public intellectuals, and artists whose work is making a difference in their professional fields and in the larger world. Coming from diverse disciplines and perspectives, they challenge each other's ideas and support each other's ambitions.  Applications in all academic disciplines, professions, and creative arts are encouraged, and there are a few areas of special interest:
  • Applications from scholars and practitioners who connect research to law, policy, pressing social issues, and/or who seek to actively engage audiences beyond academia.
  • Reflecting Radcliffe's unique history, each year some projects focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the Schlesinger Library's rich collections. In 2020-2021, one fellow will be designated a Mellon-Schlesinger fellow, as part of the project commemorating the centennial of the 19th Amendment.
Radcliffe Institute fellows are in residence for a period of nine months from September 1, 2020 through May 31, 2021. Fellows receive office or studio space and access to libraries and other resources at Harvard University. Applicants must have received their doctorate in the area of the proposed project at least two years prior to their appointment as a fellow (December 2018 for the 2020-21 fellowship year) and have published at least five articles in refereed journals. Applicants may apply as individuals or in a group of two to three people working on the same project. All group members must meet the eligibility requirements for their fields.
internal_dcf
Dean's Competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship *
Deadline: October 9, 2019 by 5:00PM
Award Amount: $5,000-$50,000
Eligible Applicants: FAS and SEAS assistant, associate and tenured faculty; Professors in Residence and Professors of the Practice are also eligible.
 
The Dean's Competitive Fund for Promising Scholarship is a targeted program that provides funding in the following categories:
  1. Bridge funding, to allow faculty to continue work on previously funded research, scholarship, or creative activity that does not currently have external funding. Faculty who apply in this category should demonstrate that efforts have been made or will be made to obtain new external funding.
  2. Seed funding, to encourage faculty to launch exciting new scholarship or research directions that might not yet be ready to compete in traditional funding programs.
  3. Enabling subventions, to provide small funds to purchase (or upgrade) critical equipment. Applicants for such funds must have no existing startup funds on which they could draw for this purpose.
 
For all categories, applicants should clearly explain in non-specialist language the critical need, make a compelling case for large marginal gain, and justify the need for support from this fund rather than traditional sources. Previous recipients may apply, though the committee is unlikely to provide continued funding for a project that has already received funding through this source.
Internal_RadSem
Deadline: October 21, 2019
Award Amount: up to $18,000
 
The Academic Ventures Exploratory Seminar Program provides funding to scholars, practitioners, and artists for collaboration in an interdisciplinary exploration of early-stage ideas. The program encourages intellectual risk taking as participants gather in an intensive seminar setting to explore new fields of research and inquiry. We welcome proposals that:
  • Explore the viability of early-stage research ideas in any discipline or multiple disciplines
  • Invite the perspectives of diverse participants and stakeholders to the discussion
  • Integrate senior and junior scholars from institutions in the greater Boston area, across the United States, or around the world
  • Demonstrate risk taking and creativity

The following areas, while not exclusive, are of special interest:

  • Radcliffe supports engaged scholarship. We welcome proposals that connect research to law, policy, pressing social issues, and/or seek to actively engage audiences beyond academia.
  • Reflecting Radcliffe's unique history, proposals that focus on women, gender, and society or draw on the Schlesinger Library's rich collections.
The lead applicant must be either a Harvard ladder (tenured or tenure-track) faculty member (from any school) or a former or current Radcliffe fellow; co-applicants may apply with lead applicants who meet eligibility requirements. An exploratory seminar accommodates roughly 12-20 participants.
internal_CCSF
Deadline: October 21, 2019 
Award Amount: Up to $150,000 over one or two years
 
The Harvard University Climate Change Solutions Fund supports research and policy initiatives intended to reduce the risks of climate change, hasten the transition from fossil fuel-based energy systems to those that rely on renewable energy sources, to develop methods for diminishing the impact of existing fossil fuel-based energy systems on the climate, to understand and prepare for the impacts of climate change, and to propel scientific, technological, legal, behavioral, policy and artistic innovations needed to accelerate progress toward cleaner energy, improved human health, and a greener world. Applications should propose research that will advance solutions to climate change and its impact. Solutions may include both preparedness and mitigation and strong consideration will be given to projects that demonstrate a clear pathway to application, as well as riskier proposals with the potential to be transformative over time. Proposals that demonstrate imaginative and promising collaboration among faculty and students across different parts of the University will receive special consideration, as will projects that propose using the university campus as a "living laboratory."
Internal_PIFIE
Deadline: October 25, 2019
Award Amount: $5,000-$60,000
 
The President's Innovation Fund for International Experiences provides seed funding to faculty members at any Harvard school, to support the development of creative and significant academic experiences abroad for Harvard College students. These grants seek to foster the participation of faculty at all Harvard schools (including graduate and professional), departments, centers, and other academic units in expanding international opportunities for Harvard undergraduates. This may mean developing experience-based courses for students overseas, including courses prior to and/or following their international experience; involving undergraduates in an ongoing overseas project sponsored by a Harvard graduate or professional school, department, center, or other academic unit; or other innovative projects.
 
In the 2019-20 award cycle, the PIFIE will fund five to ten proposals. Applications will fall into three categories: 1) requests for funding to develop and implement a new international program, 2) requests for funding to make exploratory or planning site visits, or 3) requests from prior award recipients for renewal funding.
Internal_HDSI
Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Up to $5,000
Target Applicants: Applications are invited from individuals who hold a faculty appointment at a Harvard school and who have principal investigator rights at that school.
 
The Faculty Special Projects Fund is intended to support one-time data science opportunities for which other funding is not readily available. Applicants may request funding of up to $5,000 to support research, community-building, outreach, and educational activities. Examples of projects that the Fund is intended to support include offsetting the cost of running workshops or seminars, data visualization or research dissemination, and video production. The HDSI welcomes applications from all fields of scholarship.  
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, and funding will be awarded throughout the year until available funding is exhausted. The total annual budget is $50,000.

Internal_SolarGeo
Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Varies by award type
 
Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program (SGRP) aims to focus on advancing solar geoengineering science and technology; assessing efficiency and risks; and laying out governance options and social implications. The following funding mechanisms are currently available: 
 
Residency Program:  This program will accept a small number of researchers focused on solar geoengineering to spend between 1 and 3 weeks at Harvard University, working directly with researchers at SGRP and other members of the Harvard community. The main purpose of this program is to enable visitors to work in collaboration with Harvard researchers and each other on discrete research projects. SGRP will cover the cost of travel and accommodations as well as per diem for meals.
 
Harvard Faculty Research Grants:  SGRP will provide direct support for research activities that cannot be fulfilled by students or fellows. That could involve multi-investigator collaborations, field or laboratory work in the sciences, or field or survey work in the social sciences.

Industry/Corporate Opportunities
Corp_ARA
SEAS/FAS/OSP Deadline: September 27, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: October 4, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $80,000. Overhead cost are not allowable whereas FAS/SEAS policy requires 69% overhead. Please discuss with your grants administrator before beginning an application.
 
The Amazon Research Awards (ARA) program offers awards of up to $80,000 to faculty members at academic institutions worldwide for research in these areas:
  • Computer vision
  • Fairness in artificial intelligence
  • Knowledge management and data quality
  • Machine learning algorithms and theory
  • Natural language processing
  • Online advertising
  • Operations research and optimization
  • Personalization
  • Robotics
  • Search and information retrieval
  • Security, privacy and abuse prevention
 
The ARA program funds projects conducted primarily by PhD students or post docs, under the supervision of the faculty member awarded the funds. Awards are structured as one-year unrestricted gifts to academic institutions and can include up to $80,000 in funding and up to $20,000 in AWS Promotional Credits.
Corp_AmazonMLRA
SEAS/FAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: The amount awarded is at the discretion of the awards panel and may be based on the number of applicants and number of awards granted during an award cycle. Awards are structured as one-year unrestricted gifts to academic institutions and can include funding and AWS Promotional Credits. 69% overhead is required per FAS/SEAS policy.
 
The AWS Machine Learning Research Awards (MLRA) program funds eligible universities, faculty, PhD students and post-docs under the supervision of faculty, that are conducting novel research in machine learning (ML). The goal is to enable research that accelerates the development of innovative algorithms, publications, and source code across a wide variety of ML applications and focus areas. Selected applicants will receive awards that include unrestricted cash funding as well as AWS Promotional Credits. Award recipients will receive an invitation to attend an annual research seminar and may receive live one-on-one training sessions with Amazon scientists and engineers.
 
Full-time faculty members and university departments leading a team of students and postdocs at education institutions in North America and Europe which are conducting innovative research related to Machine Learning are eligible to apply. Awards provided to faculty or university institutions will support the researchers identified in the application conducting research under the guidance of this PI.
Cisco  
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Budgets depend on the institution and geography. Overhead is limited to 5%. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.

Cisco Research Center (CRC) connects researchers and developers from Cisco, academia, governments, customers, and industry partners with the goal of facilitating collaboration and exploration of new and promising technologies. Cisco is primarily interested in exploring issues, topics, and problems that are relevant to its core business of improving the Internet. It is also deeply interested in adjacent technologies that leverage the power of the network to change the world around us.
 
CRC supports a broad range of research interests and award types in engineering and applied sciences. For a complete list of Requests for Proposals (RFPs), please scroll to the bottom of this link. Please note that CRC also welcomes research proposals that do not fit cleanly into any of the RFPs listed.
  IBM_World
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: Please note that OSP review and approval is required for any User Agreements between the sponsor and Harvard University. 
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: up to 150,000 years of computing power through World Community Grid; weather data from The Weather Company, an IBM Business; and cloud storage from IBM Cloud.

IBM invites scientists studying climate change or ways to mitigate or adapt to its impacts to apply for free crowdsourced supercomputing power, weather data and cloud storage to support their climate or environmental research projects. In return, awardees are asked to publicly release the research data from their collaboration with IBM, enabling the global community to benefit from and build upon those findings.
 
Grantees will receive free, 24/7 access to computing power though World Community Grid, an award-winning IBM Citizenship initiative that enables anyone with a computer or Android device to support scientific research by carrying out computational research tasks on their devices. This allows researchers to conduct large-scale investigations, often magnitudes larger than they would have otherwise been able to conduct. Grantees may also request access to weather data and cloud storage.
DoD_darpaYFA
Sponsor Deadline for Executive Summaries (strongly encouraged): September 18, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 12, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 19, 2019
Award Amount: Each award will include a 24-month base period (maximum of $500,000) and a possible 12-month option period called the "Director's Fellowship" (maximum of $500,000).
 
DARPA's Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior faculty positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions and expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security challenges and needs. In particular, this YFA will provide high-impact funding to elite researchers early in their careers to develop innovative new research directions in the context of enabling transformative DoD capabilities. The long-term goal of the program is to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers in the research community who will focus a significant portion of their future careers on DoD and National Security issues. Once awards are made, each YFA performer will be assigned a DARPA Program Manager with interests closely related to their research topic. The Program Manager will act as project manager and mentor to the YFA award recipients. As part of the program, a number of visits/exercises at a variety of DoD sites and facilities will be scheduled.
 
Participation in the YFA program is limited to any current tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professors and to tenured Assistant or Associate Professors within three years of their tenure appointment at a U.S. institution of higher education or equivalent at a U.S. non-profit science and technology research institution. Previous YFA recipients are not eligible to apply to this or any future YFA program, though recipients of non-YFA DARPA awards are eligible to propose.
 
This Research Announcement (RA) solicits single principal investigator (PI) proposals for research and development in the following specific Technical Areas (TAs) of interest:
  1. Unlocking the Secrets of Roman Concrete
  2. In Vivo Biosensors
  3. Decision Making Algorithm for Medical Countermeasure (MCM) Development
  4. Microbial Community Modeling
  5. Biological Systems for Sensing, Reporting, and Mitigating Air Contamination
  6. Distributed Intelligence in Flexible Robots
  7. Bioinspired Soft-Matter Electrical Circuits
  8. Room-temperature Chip-scale Quantum Opto-mechanical Sensors
  9. AI System Engineering
  10. Advanced Corrosion Control
  11. Economics-driven Secure Multiparty Computation
  12. Cross-Cultural Extrapolation of Privacy-Oriented Human-Technology Interactions
  13. Scientific Model Aware Computing
  14. Push Science
  15. Visualization Innovations for Cyber Terrain Operations Representation (VICTOR)
  16. Reducing Errors in Quantum Systems
  17. Dielectrics for High-Temperature CMOS FETs
  18. A Physics-Based Re-exploration of Spectrum Allocation
  19. Detecting Cognitive Dissonance & Belief Shift Over Time
  20. Chip-scale Blind Sampled Wideband Periodogram and Time Transfer by Machine Learning
  21. Practical Antineutrino Detectors
  22. RF Power Harvesting for Remote Sensing
  23. Low Loop Latency Distributed Time Transfer
  24. High-Entropy Alloys Study
  25. Ocean Object Identification via Distributed Sensors
  26. Flame Stability and Ignition in Partially-Premixed High-Speed Flows
  27. On-Orbit Servicing Architectures for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Constellations

At the executive summary phase, proposing PIs are limited to one executive summary per TA. At the full proposal phase, proposing PIs are limited to submitting only one full proposal to only one topic under this RA.
DoD_2019ONRatomic
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (strongly encouraged): September 20, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 7, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 15, 2019
Award Amount: The funded amount and period of performance of each proposal selected for award may vary. The period of performance for projects may be from one to three years.
 
This announcement describes a research thrust entitled "Atomic and Quantum Science and Technology" to be launched under Fiscal Year (FY) 19 Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Navy and Marine Corps Science and Technology . ONR is interested in receiving white papers and proposals in support of advancing atomic, molecular and quantum science and technology for future naval applications.
 
Specific focus areas are as follows:
  • Protocols for efficient atom, ion or molecule cooling and trapping.
  • Techniques for robust and/or high performance optical atomic clocks.
  • Novel approaches to quantum inertial or electromagnetic field sensing and applications thereof that have the potential to significantly outperform the current state of the art.
  • Innovative protocols for the preparation, readout, characterization and utilization of quantum correlated states for improved sensing and quantum information processing.
  • Protocols for enhancing coherence in quantum systems by engineering the environment that are compatible with applications in quantum information processing.
  • Novel approaches to quantum simulation of complex, correlated quantum systems and quantum algorithms for finding approximate solutions to hard problems with Navy relevance that may outperform all known classical techniques.
  • Approaches to implementing quantum information processing tasks using phonons and phonon-based devices.
DoD_reSource
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): September 26, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 29, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 5, 2019
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The ReSource program will be accomplished over three sequential phases of 15, 15, and 18 months, respectively.
 
The goal of the DARPA Biological Technologies Office (BTO)'s ReSource program is to provide the military with an integrated system to convert plastics, and other energy-dense waste, into food and strategic chemicals. Developed technologies should function in austere environments to extend long-term missions by engaging single-use wastes and scavenged materials as feedstock, consequently decreasing the logistic burdens and risks associated with delivery of supplies.
 
There are three interconnected Technical Areas (TAs) which must be developed concurrently over the duration of the effort:
  • Technical Area 1: "Breakdown" - The objective of TA1 is to use prepared, pre-treated waste as a feedstock.
  • Technical Area 2: "Buildup" - The objective of TA2 is to utilize organic upgradeable intermediates to generate strategic materials and chemicals in unpurified forms at high efficiency and scale.
  • Technical Area 3: TA3A "Release" and TA3B "Recovery" - The objective of TA3 is to devise up- and down-stream processes that will enable the maximized functions of TA1 and TA2 technologies.
Proposals that do not address all three TAs will be considered non-responsive and not considered for review.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.
DoD_darpaCREATE
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 26, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 3, 2019
Award Amount: The CREATE program will consist of two phases: a Phase 1 Feasibility Study (base, not to exceed $350,000 for 6 months) and a Phase 2 Proof of Concept (option, not to exceed $650,000 for 12 months).
 
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is issuing an Artificial Intelligence Exploration (AIE) Opportunity inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domain of autonomous machine teaming. CREATE is investigating new approaches for autonomous teaming of physically distributed groups of AI enabled systems (multi-agent systems) when there is limited opportunity for centralized coordination. CREATE will develop the theoretical foundations of autonomous AI teaming to enable a system of heterogeneous, contextually-aware agents to act in a decentralized manner to satisfy multiple, simultaneous and unplanned mission goals. Agents within the team will have mechanisms for regulation to ensure (favorable) emergent behavior of the team to (1) better ensure the desired mission outcome and (2) bound the cost of unintended adverse action or 'regret'.
 
This AIE Opportunity is issued under the Program Announcement for AIE, DARPA-PA-19-03 .

DoD_darpaPAPPA
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 26, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 3, 2019
Award Amount: The PAPPA program will consist of two phases: a Phase 1 Feasibility Study (base, not to exceed $250,000 for 6 months) and a Phase 2 Proof of Concept (option, not to exceed $750,000 for 12 months).
 
DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) is issuing a Microsystems Exploration topic (μE) inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domain of massively parallel heterogeneous computing, parallel programming methods, self-modifying compilers, program synthesis, and predictive system modeling. The PAPPA opportunity seeks novel programming approaches and compiler technology that enable scientists and application experts to efficiently compile a broad set of high-level mathematical programs to extremely parallel and heterogeneous hardware. The goal of PAPPA is to explore the creation of compiler technology that improves the programming productivity of massively parallel and heterogeneous processing systems with 1,000,000 way parallelism by 10,000X. If successful, such performance portable compilers will significantly lower the barrier to deploying new algorithms and science on future state of the art programmable systems.
 
DoD_poly14
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): September 27, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 4, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 12, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $20,000 for up to 6 months
 
The purpose of this Polyplexus Pilot Topic Opportunity Notice is to provide public notification of a research and development funding opportunity on the Polyplexus online platform. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) invites participation in Polyplexus, which is an online, professional, technical conversation between the research community and DARPA Program Managers that will lead to the opportunity to submit abstracts and full proposals for a research and development project. The shared task of this group is to rigorously explore th e trends and possible applications of emerging science and technology in a specific technical area defined by a participating Program Manager. The initial technical area under consideration in this announcement is computational or information system hardware trojan identification. The goal is to explore human immune system as a model for trojan detection. The topic will be refined as the incubator conversation evolves. The updated topic can be found in the "Hardware Trojan Identification (Topic 14)" incubator located on the
polyplexus.com website.
 
The process, evaluation criteria, abstract submission instructions, and proposal submission instructions are described in the most recent amendment of BAA for Polyplexus Pilot 3 (HR001119S0075) .
 
Approximately five awards are anticipated. Activities of particular interest in the funded projects are (1) a literature review and (2) a future technical opportunity analysis congruent with the final topic generated on polyplexus.com in the Hardware Trojan Identification (14) incubator. In addition, the information gathered in the incubator may serve as the basis for a future program.
DoD_darpaFastNICs
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 1, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 8, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. FastNICs is a four-year program organized into three phases: Phase 1 (24 months), Phase 2 (12 months),and Phase 3 (12 months).
 
DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O) is soliciting innovative research proposals for improving network stack performance to realize 100x or more throughput gains, in order to accelerate highly distributed applications, such as training of deep neural networks. The program will focus on overcoming the gross mismatches in computing and network subsystem performance. Specifically, computer network interface performance lags the performance of other computer subsystems (RAM, CPU, etc.) by 3 to 4 orders of magnitude.
 
FastNICs is structured into three technical areas (TAs):
  • TA1: Network Subsystem Hardware and Software (TA1.1 - network interface hardware, and TA1.2 - system software support)
  • TA2: Applications
  • TA3: Independent Test and Evaluation
Proposals to TA1 must address both TA1.1 and TA1.2. Proposers may submit proposals for any or all technical areas without restriction. However, each technical area must be proposed separately (i.e., each proposal should only address one TA). Proposers selected for TA3 cannot be selected for any portion of the other two technical areas.
 
DARPA anticipates one or more awards for technical area 1, one or more awards for technical area 2, and a single award for technical area 3.
DoD_DARPApoly13
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 4, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 14, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 for 1 year.
 
The purpose of this Polyplexus Pilot Topic Opportunity Notice is to provide public notification of a research and development funding opportunity on the Polyplexus online platform. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) invites participation in Polyplexus, which is an online, professional, technical conversation between the research community and DARPA Program Managers that will lead to the opportunity to submit abstracts and full proposals for a research and development project. The shared task of this group is to rigorously explore the trends and possible applications of emerging science and technology in a specific technical area defined by a participating Program Manager. The initial technical area under consideration in this announcement is to generate multi-physics models and simulators directly from a description of the phenomena. The topic will be refined as the incubator conversation evolves. The updated topic can be found in the "Rethink Physics  Modeling (Topic 13)" incubator located on the polyplexus.com website.
 
The process, evaluation criteria, abstract submission instructions, and proposal submission instructions are described in the most recent amendment of BAA for Polyplexus Pilot 3 (HR001119S0075) .
 
At least one award is anticipated. In addition, the information gathered in the incubator may serve as the basis for a future program.
DoD_darpaSymbiotic
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 7, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 15, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The Symbiotic Design program is organized in three phases: Phase 1 will be 18 months, and will consist of initial research and tool development; Phase 2 will be 15 months, and will focus on expanding the scope of application and scaling; and Phase 3 will also be 15 months, and will focus on technology maturation and capstone demonstration.
 
DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of AI-based approaches for design of military-relevant cyber-physical systems (CPS). The goal of the Symbiotic Design for CPS program is to develop AI-based approaches to enable correct-by-construction design of military-relevant CPS, in order to reduce the time from their inception to deployment from years to months, and enhance innovation in design.
 
The program has three technical areas (TA):
  • TA1: AI Co-Designer
  • TA2: Symbiotic Exchange
  • TA3: Program Evaluation
Each proposal may only address a single TA, but proposers may submit multiple proposals. However, proposers selected for award in TA3 as prime will not be selected for award in any other TA.
 
DARPA anticipates multiple awards in technical areas (TAs) 1 and 2 and no more than two awards in TA3.
DoD_explosives
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (required): October 11, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: December 13, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): December 20, 2019
Award Amount: $350,000-$500,000/year for 2-3 years.
 
The Department of Defense (DoD) Explosives Ordnance Disposal (EOD) force is tasked with handling and safely disposing of a variety of explosive and non-explosive threats. The Office of Naval Research (ONR) DoD EOD Science and Technology (S&T) Program develops and demonstrates emerging technologies for DoD EOD missions and threat areas. In this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), ONR requests white papers and full proposals for the development of advanced technologies for diagnostic sensing and neutralization of buried and surface devices or munitions in land environments only. ONR is seeking novel, innovative and/or high risk/high payoff ideas and approaches.
 
The goals for this BAA are to conduct innovative research and develop technology that will improve the warfighter's ability to:
  1. Diagnose the functionality of a device or munition and
  2. Neutralize the device or munition and to render it harmless or incapable of firing.
  3. Both 1 and 2 will address surface and buried munitions in land environments.
4-6 awards are anticipated.
DoD_specialONR
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 15, 2019
Award Amount: The funded amount and period of performance of each proposal selected for award may vary depending on the technology area and the technical approach to be pursued by the offeror selected.  

This announcement describes a research thrust entitled "Science of Artificial Intelligence - Basic and Applied Research for the Naval Domain" to be launched under Fiscal Year (FY19) Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the Navy and Marine Corps Science and Technology . ONR is interested in receiving white papers and proposals in support of advancing artificial intelligence for future naval applications in the following Topic Areas:
  • Topic 1: AI for Predictive Maintenance (AI Applied Research)
  • Topic 2: Rapid Learning of Task Procedures (AI Applied Research)
  • Topic 3: Scalable Verification and Validation Tools for Artificial Intelligence in the Naval Domain (AI Fundamental and Applied Research)
  • Topic 4: Brain-Inspired Deep Learning with Spiking Neurons (AI Fundamental Research)
  • Topic 5: Brain-based computation (AI Fundamental Research)
  • Topic 6: Explainable AI Systems (AI Fundamental and Applied Research)
  • Topic 7: Mission-focused AI (AI fundamental and applied Research)
  • Topic 8: Predictive Adaptations to Support Human Performance and Injury Prevention (Applied Research)
DoD_darpaFOCII
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 18, 2019; DARPA may consider proposals submitted between October 18 and November 1, 2019 contingent upon the availability of funds; however proposers are warned that the likelihood of available funding is greatly reduced for proposals submitted after the initial closing date
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The FOCII program is a 48-month effort that will be executed in three phases: a base 12-month Phase 1 focused on mechanical structures, an optional 18-month Phase 2 focused on integrated FPAs, and an optional 18-month Phase 3 focused on imaging demonstrations.  
 
DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) is soliciting research and development proposals for the FOcal arrays for Curved Infrared Imagers (FOCII) program to 1) curve existing state of the art large area (≥ 55 mm diagonal), high resolution, state of the art cryogenically cooled mid- and/or longwave infrared focal plane arrays to a spherical radius of curvature of 70 mm without any change to the underlying FPA design process, and 2) curve smaller arrays (35 mm diagonal) to an extreme 12.5 mm spherical radius of curvature using structured designs.
 
FOCII will demonstrate curved FPAs in two Technical Areas (TA):
  • Technical Area 1 (TA1): Curving SOA FPAs
  • Technical Area 2 (TA2): Structured FPAs
A single organization may propose to both TA1 and TA2 but must submit separate proposals for each TA. A single organization may receive awards for both TA1 and TA2. Tasks that would be duplicated in the effort if both TAs were awarded must be called out explicitly.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.
DoD_poly15
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 22, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 29, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 for 1 year.
 
The purpose of this Polyplexus Pilot Topic Opportunity Notice is to provide public notification of a research and development funding opportunity on the Polyplexus online platform. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) invites participation in Polyplexus, which is an online, professional, technical conversation between the research community and DARPA Program Managers that will lead to the opportunity to submit abstracts and full proposals for a research and development project. The shared task of this group is to rigorously explore the trends and possible applications of emerging science and technology in a specific technical area defined by a participating Program Manager. The initial technical area under consideration in this announcement is quantum bio-computing. The topic will be refined as the incubator conversation evolves. The updated topic can be found in the "Quantum Bio-Computing (Topic 15)" incubator located on the polyplexus.com website.
 
The process, evaluation criteria, abstract submission instructions, and proposal submission instructions are described in the most recent amendment of BAA for Polyplexus Pilot 3 (HR001119S0075) .
 
At least one award is anticipated. In addition, the information gathered in the incubator may serve as the basis for a future program.
DoD_cdmrp
Sponsor Deadline for Pre-Applications/Letters of Intent (required): October 23, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 5, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 13, 2019
Award Amount:  The anticipated direct costs budgeted for the entire period of performance for an FY19 CRRP RDTRA will not exceed $1,500,000. The maximum period of performance is 2 years.
 
This Funding Opportunity Announcement is a Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) through the Fiscal Year 2019 (FY19) Combat Readiness - Medical Research Program (CRRP) for the Rapid Development and Translational Research Award (RDTRA). The CRRP vision is to deliver high-impact medical solutions throughout the continuum of care to increase survivability and readiness of the Warfighter in diverse operational settings. Per the program's mission statement, the CRRP seeks to develop innovative solutions to increase medical readiness, mitigate fatalities, optimally treat life-threatening injuries, and promote positive long-term outcomes. Projects funded under this BAA must be for applied and clinical research (excluding clinical trials) not related to the development of a specific system or hardware procurement. This BAA may not be used to support fundamental basic research. Research and development funded through this BAA is intended and expected to benefit and inform both military and civilian medical practice and knowledge.
 
To meet the intent of the award mechanism, proposals/applications submitted to the FY19 CRRP RDTRA must address at least one of the FY19 CRRP RDTRA Focus Areas:
  • Scalable solutions for wound care that can address prevention of bleeding and infection, delivery of therapeutics, and promotion of healing;
  • Decision-support solutions, such as algorithms, artificial intelligence, deep learning, telemedicine, etc. for triage and management of severely injured Warfighters;
  • Solutions that address hemorrhage control; and
  • Wearable sensors with multiple capabilities to identify and monitor medical management of injuries and/or exposures. 
Additional concurrent research approaches that address mitigation of long-term physical and psychological complications that occur from management of trauma pain and trauma care, as well as treatments for sepsis and new therapies for multidrug-resistant pathogens, and injuries incurred outside the battlefield are encouraged, but not required.
 
The CDMRP expects to allot approximately $13M to fund approximately five to six RDTRA proposal/applications

DoD_poly16
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 28, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 4, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 for 1 year.
 
The purpose of this Polyplexus Pilot Topic Opportunity Notice is to provide public notification of a research and development funding opportunity on the Polyplexus online platform. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) invites participation in Polyplexus, which is an online, professional, technical conversation between the research community and DARPA Program Managers that will lead to the opportunity to submit abstracts and full proposals for a research and development project. The shared task of this group is to rigorously explore the trends and possible applications of emerging science and technology in a specific technical area defined by a participating Program Manager. The initial technical area under consideration in this announcement is cognitive dissonance detection. The topic will be refined as the incubator conversation evolves. The updated topic can be found in the "Cognitive Dissonance Detection (Topic 16)" incubator located on the polyplexus.com website.
 
The process, evaluation criteria, abstract submission instructions, and proposal submission instructions are described in the most recent amendment of BAA for Polyplexus Pilot 3 (HR001119S0075) .
 
At least one award is anticipated. In addition, the information gathered in the incubator may serve as the basis for a future program.
DoD_darpaCRANE
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 1, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 8, 2019
Award Amount: The total budget for Phase 0 is $21M for 12 months. Phase 1 is expected to nominally take 9 months.
 
DARPA's Tactical Technology Office (TTO) is soliciting proposals for the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program. CRANE will design, build, and flight test an X-Plane that incorporates Active Flow Control (AFC) as a primary design consideration. This BAA seeks full proposals for Phase 0 and a fully priced option for Phase 1. Phase 0 focuses on the aircraft design process and trade space development via the exploration of multiple configurations by each performer and concluding with a Conceptual Design Review (CoDR). Phase 1 continues the maturation of up to two concepts with the expectation of component level testing and demonstrations to inform a System Requirement Review (SRR), Preliminary Design Review (PDR), and through a limited competition, down to a single performer/single concept for Phase 2/3 funding. Only proposals addressing CRANE objectives will be eligible for funding under this BAA and only Phase 0 and Phase 1 performers will be eligible to participate in Phases 2 and 3. DARPA seeks proposals that present a credible path to demonstration of program objectives (see Figure 1 for a notional schedule). The Government will request Phase 2/3 proposals during Phase 1 execution.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.

DoD_RAP
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: Review not required for awards made directly to individuals
Sponsor Deadlines for Full Proposals: November 1, 2019; February 1, 2020; May 1, 2020; August 1, 2020
Award Amount: Awards include stipends ranging from $45,000 to $80,000, health insurance, professional travel, and relocation. Awards are for up to 12 months (Summer Faculty awards are for 8-14 weeks), with the possibility of extension through a second or third year.
 
The NRC Research Associateship Programs (RAP) promote excellence in scientific and technological research conducted by the U.S. government through the administration of programs offering graduate, postdoctoral, and senior level research opportunities at sponsoring federal laboratories and affiliated institutions. In the NRC Research Associateship Programs, prospective applicants select a research project or projects from among a large group of  Research Opportunities . Prior to completing an application, prospective applicants should contact the Research Adviser listed with the selected Research Opportunity(ies) to assure that funding will be available if the application is recommended by NRC Research Associateship Programs panels.
 
Prospective applicants should carefully read the details and eligibility of the program to which they are applying. Some laboratories have citizenship restrictions (open only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents), and some laboratories have Research Opportunities that are not open to senior applicants (more than 5 years beyond the Ph.D.). When searching for Research Opportunities, applicants may limit their search to only those laboratories which match their eligibility criteria. In addition, applicants should note application deadlines, as not all laboratories participate in all reviews.
DoD_minervaDECUR
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 12, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 19, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $400,000 distributed evenly over 2 years
 
The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is interested in receiving proposals for the  Minerva Research Initiative's  (Minerva) Defense Education and Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership. The DECUR Partnership aims to develop collaborative basic research partnerships between Professional Military Education (PME) Institutions and Civilian Research Universities by supporting fundamental scientific research that improves the capacity of security-related basic social science research and education. Building upon the success of Minerva's university research awards, the DECUR Partnership aims to pair civilian university researchers with PME faculty to facilitate collaborative research in the fundamental understanding of the social and cultural forces shaping U.S. strategic interests globally.  Proposals must include a civilian university Principal Investigator (PI) and a PME co-PI. Outside of the civilian university PI and the PME co-PI, the size of research teams is not limited. The research questions addressed should extend beyond standard disciplinary approaches to include innovative multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary methodological approaches.
 
The Minerva Research Initiative competition is for research related to the following nine topics:
  • Topic 1:            Peer/Near-peer Statecraft, Influence, and Regional Balance of Power
  • Topic 2:            Power, Deterrence, and Escalation Management
  • Topic 3:            Alliances and Burden Sharing
  • Topic 4:            Economic Interdependence and Security
  • Topic 5:            Economic Viability, Resilience, and Sustainability of Logistics Infrastructure
  • Topic 6:            Multi-Domain Behavioral Complexity and Computational Social Modeling
  • Topic 7:            Autonomy, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Ethics, and Social Interactions
  • Topic 8:            Models and Methods for Understanding Covert Online Influence
  • Topic 9:            Automated Cyber Vulnerability Analysis
5-6 awards are anticipated.
DoD_darpaSemaFor
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 14, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 21, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The SemaFor program consists of three phases: Phase 1 (18 months), Phase 2 (18 months), and Phase 3 (12 months).
 
DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of semantic technologies to automatically assess falsified media. The Semantic Forensics (SemaFor) program will develop technologies to automatically detect, attribute, and characterize falsified, multi-modal media assets (e.g., text, audio, image, video) to defend against large-scale, automated disinformation attacks. SemaFor will develop methods that exploit semantic inconsistencies in falsified media to perform these tasks across media modalities and at scale.
 
SemaFor has four technical areas (TAs):
  • TA1 is Detection, Attribution, and Characterization of multi-modal media assets.
  • TA2, Explanation and Integration, will combine results across TA1 performers, present explanations for system decisions, and prioritize assets for analyst review. TA2 will also develop the prototype SemaFor system.
  • TA3, Evaluation, will generate and curate multi-modal media for evaluation, design the program evaluations, establish human baseline performance, and develop additional program metrics.
  • TA4, Challenge Curation, will continually provide state-of-the-art (SOTA) challenges to the program to test the techniques developed by TA1 and TA2. TA4 will also develop forward-looking threat models, to anticipate future threats and ensure SemaFor defenses are focused in the right areas.
Proposers may submit proposals to all TAs. However, each proposal may only address one TA. DARPA will not make TA1 and TA2 awards to the same performer. The TA3 performer may not perform on TA1 or TA2 due to an inherent conflict of interest with the evaluation process. TA4 performers may be awarded contracts on other TAs of the program, but conflicts of interest plans will be required in the case of TA1 or TA2 due to potential conflicts of interest with the evaluation process.
 
DARPA anticipates multiple awards for Technical Areas 1 and 4, and single awards for Technical Area 2 and 3.
DoD_sffp
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: Review not required for awards made directly to individuals
Sponsor Proposal Submission Window: September 1-November 29, 2019
Award Amount: This Fellowship awards a stipend (level to be based upon the applicant's career status) and moving allowance (if applicable).
 
The U.S. Air Force Research Lab Summer Faculty Fellowship Program (SFFP) offers hands-on exposure to Air Force research challenges through 8- to 12-week research residencies during the summer months at participating Air Force research facilities (i.e. AFRL Directorates, Air Force Test Centers (AFTC), the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA), or the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT)) for full-time science, mathematics, and engineering faculty at U.S. colleges and universities. Click here to learn more about the areas of interest to the various Air Force Research Facilities and for contact information for each facility. Before uploading a proposal, the applicant must get approval from a designated research advisor to apply to a program. To be eligible for an award, each application must be approved by the advisor for that research opportunity and must be endorsed by the appropriate Air Force research facility.
 
Research Fellows are highly encouraged to bring a graduate student with them for the research period. Graduate student applications must be completed and submitted to the faculty advisor to be uploaded as a part of their application proposal.
 
For eligibility requirements, please see http://afsffp.sysplus.com/SFFP/about/eligibility.aspx . Applicants should be aware that stipend payments from other federal funding sources including research grants and contracts may not be accepted during the tenure of a summer faculty appointment.
DoD_DarpaOFFSET
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Proposals may be submitted through March 26, 2020; the likelihood of available funding is greatly reduced for proposals submitted after the initial deadline of May 1, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $450,000 for 6 months, with an additional three-month option period to facilitate integration activities.
 
The goal of OFFSET Swarm Sprints is to create focused breakthroughs in swarm technologies to be integrated into the OFFSET Swarm Systems Architecture. The specific topics of interest for this amendment are (1) the creation and implementation of potential future synthetic technologies in OFFSET virtual environments to enable exploration of novel swarm tactics; and (2) the application of artificial intelligence methods to accelerate and aid the design of advanced swarm tactics that are robust in realistic operational settings.
 
This BAA amendment solicits proposals for a Core Sprint in Virtual Environments, and also for an Ad Hoc Sprint in the topic area of Applications of Artificial Intelligence. Proposers may respond to more than one Swarm Sprint topic area; however, a separate, standalone proposal is required for each Swarm Sprint topic area.
 
DARPA intends to award up to fifteen Swarm Sprinter awards in this Swarm Sprint call.

DOD_ONRSab
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: Review not required for individual fellowships
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Rolling (proposals must be submitted 6 months prior to the start of the proposed sabbatical)
Award Amount: Participants receive a monthly stipend making up the difference between salary and sabbatical leave pay from their home institution. Relocation and travel assistance are provided to qualifying participants. Appointments will last for a minimum of one semester to a maximum of one year in length.
 
The Sabbatical Leave Program provides an opportunity for faculty members to engage in scholarly, creative, professional, research, or other academic activities at a sponsoring U.S. Navy Laboratory that will enhance the faculty member's further contributions to their institution. This program is residential and all work must be completed on site.
 
Expected benefits of the Sabbatical Leave Program:
  • Broaden the scope and horizon of faculty member's research interests and provide a foundation for future research collaborations.
  • Provide an understanding of the Department of the Navy research interests and the technological implications thereof, thus enhancing the abilities of Fellows to pursue and obtain funding for research at their home institution.
  • Foster lasting relationships between Fellows and the researchers at the Navy laboratories.
Applicants are required to identify a mentor at a  Participating Laboratory that matches the applicant's research interests.
  DoD_other
Other DoD Opportunities
I f you are interested in DoD funding opportunities, please note:
The  Defense Innovation Marketplace  is a centralized source for Department of Defense science and technology (S&T) planning, acquisition resources, funding, and financial information. 
DOE_Other
DOE Opportunities
IARPA_briar
OSP review not required for responses to RFI
Response Deadline: October 21, 2019 by 12:00PM
 
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) is seeking information on research efforts and datasets that may be useful in planning a program focused on advancing the state-of-the-art of biometric recognition and identification at altitude and range. This request for information (RFI) is issued solely for planning purposes and does not constitute a formal solicitation for proposals. 

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
NASA_reddiNIAC
Sponsor Deadline for Step-A Proposals (required): September 20, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Deadline for Step-B Proposals (if invited): December 13, 2019 (Target)
Award Amount: Up to $125,000 for up to 9 months
 
The NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Program focuses on early stage feasibility studies of visionary concepts that address national government and commercial aerospace goals. Concepts are solicited from any field of study that offers a radically different approach or disruptive innovation that may significantly enhance or enable new human or robotic science and exploration missions. Proposed concepts must be framed in terms of a mission context that clearly identifies scientific or technical advancements and associated benefits compared to current approaches. Comparatively high risk and far term, NIAC concepts are transformational investments in future NASA and commercial space capabilities. The entry Technology Readiness Level (TRL) for Phase I concepts should be TRL 2 or lower. Proposed concepts must identify credible approaches toward new scientific or technical innovations that advance NASA's strategic themes to Discover, Explore, Develop, and Enable, as outlined in the 2018 NASA Strategic Plan .
 
The NIAC Program supports innovative research through Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III awards. This Appendix focuses only on Phase I, and NIAC will later release separate REsearch, Development, Demonstration, and Infusion (REDDI) Appendices soliciting Phase II and Phase III proposals, respectively. NIAC will allow sufficient time for eligible Phase I Fellows awarded in this solicitation to apply for Phase II follow-on support of up to two more years of study and development.
 
12-16 awards are anticipated.
NASA_unsol
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling through September 30, 2019
Award Amount: Proposed budget should be commensurate with the scope of the project.
 
NASA encourages the submission of unique and innovative proposals that will further the Agency's mission. While the vast majority of proposals are solicited, a small number of unsolicited proposals that cannot be submitted to those solicitations and yet are still relevant to NASA are reviewed and some are funded each year. Proposals should be submitted at least six months in advance of the desired starting date.

Before any effort is expended in preparing a proposal, potential proposers should:
  1. Review the current versions of the NASA Strategic Plan and documents from the specific directorate, office, or program for which the proposal is intended to determine if the work planned is sufficiently relevant to current goals to warrant a formal submission.
  2. Potential proposers must review current opportunities to determine if any solicitation already exists to which the potential project could be proposed.
  3. Potential proposers should review current awards (e.g., by doing key word searches at Research.gov, or at the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) grant status page, and the NASA Life and Physical Sciences Task Book) to learn what, if any, related work is already funded by NASA. Such preparation reduces the risk of redundancy, improves implementation, and sometimes results in collaboration.
After those three things have been done, the proposer may contact an appropriate NASA person to determine whether NASA has any interest in the type of work being proposed and if any funding is currently available. Proposals should be submitted at least six months in advance of the desired starting date.
NASA_smallsat
Sponsor Deadline for Notices of Intent (required): October 4, 2019
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 30, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 6, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $200,000 per year for up to 2 years. In addition, a NASA civil servant or JPL employee labor allocation of up to 0.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) per award, per year will be available to support NASA involvement. Proposal teams can also request up to $25,000 of procurement funding for the NASA partner at the second year of a project to cover NASA expenses in the collaboration
 
This appendix supports the development and/or demonstration of new technologies and capabilities for small spacecraft by U.S. colleges and universities in collaboration with NASA through award of cooperative agreements. Projects may be for ground-based technology development or development of spacecraft or payloads for suborbital, balloon or orbital space flight technology demonstrations. Unless otherwise stated in the individual Technology Topic Area, technologies must be at least TRL 3 at proposal submission.
 
For this Small Spacecraft Technology (STP) solicitation, proposing teams will need to address one of the following Technology Topic Areas:
  • Topic 1. Lunar Communications and Navigation Network
  • Topic 2: Smallsat Propulsion for Lunar Missions
  • Topic 3: Advanced Electrical Power Subsystem and Thermal Management Technology
Eligibility is limited to U.S. college and university teams, including faculty, undergraduate and/or graduate students. Partnering between the university team and a NASA center or Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is required in all funded Smallsat Technology Partnership projects. An individual is limited to being the PI on a single proposal. A team member, including any individual who is the PI on another proposal, may be a team member on more than one proposal. Proposing U.S. colleges or universities or NASA centers may submit more than one proposal, provided that, if selected, the offeror can carry out all proposed efforts.
 
Approximately 5 awards across all Technology Topic Areas are anticipated.
NASA_nstgro20
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 29, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: November 5, 2019
Award Amount: The maximum amount of an NSTGRO grant issued as a result of this solicitation will be $80,000 per year (see solicitation for details). This program provides allowances for stipend, faculty advisors, visiting technologist experiences, conference attendance, laboratory supplies, tuition and fees, health insurance, etc. Four years is the maximum amount of time a student may receive support from NSTGRO/NSTRF.

NASA's Space Technology Graduate Research Opportunities (NSTGRO) program is focused on graduate student research and development of advanced and innovative space technologies critical for our Nation to meet its goals to explore and understand the Earth, our solar system, and the universe. NASA Space Technology Graduate Researchers will perform research at their respective campuses and at NASA Centers. In addition to their faculty advisor, each recipient will be matched with a technically relevant and community-engaged NASA researcher who will serve as the research collaborator on the award. Through this collaboration, graduate students will be able to take advantage of broader and/or deeper space technology research opportunities directly related to their academic and career objectives, acquire a more detailed understanding of the potential end applications of their space technology efforts, and directly disseminate their research results within the NASA community. A NASA Space Technology Graduate Researcher is expected to engage in grant activities full-time.
 
Graduate students must be U.S. citizens, U.S. nationals or permanent residents to be eligible to apply. NSTGRO20 requires university submission of proposals; this is an important change from previous years (please note, NSTGRO20 replaces the NASA Space Technology Research Fellowships (NSTRF) program). Applications now require coordination with both a faculty advisor (who will serve as Principal Investigator on the grant) and an Authorized Organizational Representative of the submitting university. Only one proposal may be submitted on behalf of a student in response to this solicitation. There is no limit on the number of proposals that may be submitted by an accredited U.S. university, and more than one proposal may be submitted to this solicitation with the same PI. If the individual seeking support (1) is currently an undergraduate and does not know which accredited U.S. university they will be attending in the fall of 2020 or (2) is currently not enrolled as either an undergraduate or graduate student and does not know which accredited U.S. university they will be attending in the fall of 2020, the NSTGRO Proposal Submission Office will submit the proposal on their behalf
 
Awards resulting from this solicitation are planned to coincide with the start of the 2020 academic year. NASA made 65, 56 and 64 new grant awards as a result of the last three solicitation cycles. NASA expects to make a similar number of new NSTGRO awards.
NASAJohnsonSpace
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to sponsor deadline
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Rolling through December 31, 2019 (see solicitation for schedule of review cycles)
Award Amount: Details below
 
This announcement is for the development of experiment hardware with enhanced capabilities; modification of existing hardware to enable increased efficiencies (crew time, power, etc.); development of tools that allow analyses of samples and specimens on orbit; enhanced ISS infrastructure capabilities (eg, communications or data processing); and specific technology demonstration projects. Submission of a white paper is recommended in advance of a full proposal.
 
Within the NASA International Space Station (ISS) Research Integration Office, the Technology and Science Research Office (TSRO) and Commercial Space Utilization Office (CSUO) act as "gateways" to the ISS. The Technology and Science Research Office serves as the gateway for NASA-funded technology demonstrations. The Commercial Space Utilization Office serves as the gateway for non-NASA government-funded investigations, as well as non-profit or commercially-funded investigations.
 
Proposed technology demonstrations submitted to TSRO should address at least one of the technology areas mentioned in the ISS Technology Demonstration Plans .

NASA also seeks technological concepts via CSUO related to the National Lab Thrust Areas and to expand the onboard research and analytical capabilities. The general thrust areas are:
  • Innovative uses of the ISS or ISS hardware that leverage existing capabilities to stimulate both utilization of the ISS and economic development in the U.S.
  • Other improvements to existing ISS capabilities, including but not limited to infrastructure, in situ analytical tools, and communication/data transmittal, to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the technology demonstrations and science investigations performed on the ISS.
  • Unique partnering arrangements that leverage NASA's existing capabilities but increase the commercial participation in research and on board services. 
Funds are not currently available for awards under this NASA Research Announcement (NRA). The Government's ability to make award(s) is contingent upon the availability of appropriated funds from which payment can be made and the receipt of proposals that NASA determines acceptable for award under this NRA. Successful proposals will have launch and integration costs covered by NASA. 
NASA_other
Other NASA Opportunities
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
OtherNIHOpps
NIH Opportunities
National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation: Dear Colleague Letters
DCL_studentDesign
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline:
Supplemental funding requests may be submitted at any time. However, sufficient time must be allowed (e.g. a minimum of 8 weeks) to permit review and recommendation in advance of the project's initiation.
Award Amount: up to $4,000 per supplement
 
A supplemental funding opportunity is being made available starting in FY 2019 to provide support for mentored, student-led design projects that are directly related to currently funded NSF awards from the Engineering Directorate. This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) describes a new opportunity for principal investigators to expand the Broader Impact of their awards through a Design Supplement.

The goals of these supplements are the following:
  1. To connect student design projects to innovative, NSF-supported research and the latest advances in engineering science.
  2. To expose students to the discovery process of research while preparing them for their roles in the engineering workforce.
  3. To provide a team of students with the funds necessary to pursue the design process, from need finding, industry and customer discovery, through prototyping and validation.
NSFDCL_mps
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: varies by opportunity
Award Amount:  Each agency has its own funding parameters and principles that will be followed when reviewing proposals. Proposals are expected to adhere to typical proposal sizes and durations for the DMS and EPSRC Themes from which funding is sought.
 
The NSF and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on Research Cooperation. The MOU provides an overarching framework to encourage collaboration between US and UK research communities and sets out the principles by which jointly supported activities might be developed. The MOU allows for a lead agency opportunity whereby a single international collaborative proposal may be submitted to either NSF or UKRI.   Proposals will be accepted for collaborative research in areas at the intersection of the MPS/DMS and EPSRC missions. Proposers will be expected to review the relevant NSF-MPS/DMS Program Descriptions and the EPSRC website for information on which areas of research are eligible for support through this collaboration.  This collaboration principally covers unsolicited (NSF) or standard (EPSRC) proposals, with managed/solicited calls included on a case-by-case basis by prior agreement of MPS/DMS and EPSRC.  This collaboration covers a pilot phase from January 2020, with a review point after three years (January 2023).
 
Please Note:   At least two months in advance of the date the proposers expect to submit a formal proposal, an expression of interest/white paper must be submitted to their prospective lead agency. For the period September 1 - December 31, 2019, this stage may be waived. However, applicants are strongly advised to contact the prospective lead agency prior to application. 
NSFDCL_effectiveprac 
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: N/A
Sponsor Deadline: N/A
Award Amount: N/A
 
Open science principles are increasingly being adopted by industry, government, and academia. Open science gives rise to public benefits by offering broader access to publication, data, and other research materials; broader access enables broader circulation of scientific knowledge, greater return on investments in research data, and more opportunities for replicating and building upon scientific findings. NSF's open science policy is articulated in the Foundation's Public Access Plan ( NSF 15-052 ) and formally implemented in the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide and in the Award Terms and Conditions that accompany each award that NSF makes. Implications of this policy are further clarified in an actively-maintained set of Frequently Asked Questions ( NSF 18-041 ). The purpose of this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) is to describe - and encourage - effective practices for managing research data, including the use of persistent identifiers (IDs) for data and machine-readable data management plans (DMPs). Through this DCL, NSF encourages researchers to learn about the practices described in the letter and to implement them in the proposals that they prepare for submission to NSF.
NSFDCL_jointeffort
OSP Deadline: varies by program
Sponsor Deadline: varies by program
Award Amount: varies by program
 
Building on NSF's history of investments in data and computational sciences and USDA/NIFA's history of investments in agricultural science, NSF and USDA/NIFA wish to notify the community of their intention to jointly fund convergent research that combines methods in agricultural, biological, and computer and information science and engineering to address pressing challenges and opportunities in digital agriculture. This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) is aligned with NSF's Harnessing the Data Revolution Big Idea, and aims to build capacity across disciplinary boundaries, in preparation for larger scale investments at the intersection of computational, agricultural, and biological sciences. Motivated by the increasing volumes of data, faster computation, and algorithmic advances, there is an opportunity to apply transformative, data-driven research methods to the agriculture sector that are responsive to and will yield meaningful insights for farmers, other stakeholders, and society at large. Of interest for this DCL are applications focused on economically important plants, animals, and their environments---in particular food, fuel, feed, and health---and where research outcomes in a particular application area may be transferable to, or informative for, other agricultural application areas. Relevant stakeholders can be integrated into the proposed research activities, including as partners in the project, if appropriate for the project.
 
Proposals pursuant to this DCL may be submitted to one of the three programs listed below:
NSFDCL_BIGDATA
Sponsor Deadline: varies/see details below
Award Amount: varies/see details below
 
With data science now established as a discipline in its own right, NSF is transitioning investments in the BIGDATA program into (i) a new phase of larger and more targeted programs as part of the NSF-wide   Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Big Idea , and (ii) increased investments in core programs related to BIGDATA. While NSF plans no further competitions under the BIGDATA program, NSF anticipates supporting many new and continuing programs that fund innovative, interdisciplinary research in data science. Principal investigators (PIs) who would have applied to BIGDATA are especially encouraged to consider the  Harnessing the Data Revolution: Institutes for Data-Intensive Research in Science and Engineering - Frameworks (HDR: DIRSE-FW)   program. This program is one of two conceptualization paths aimed at developing institutes to accelerate discovery and innovation in data-intensive science and engineering. The DIRSE-FW program encourages applications from teams of researchers proposing frameworks for integrated sets of science and engineering problems and data science solutions. PIs may also be interested in the other conceptualization path aimed at developing institutes, the  Harnessing the Data Revolution: Institutes for Data-Intensive Research in Science and Engineering - Ideas Labs   program, which aims to bring together scientists and engineers working on important data-intensive problems with data scientists and systems/ cyberinfrastructure specialists. Activities under the HDR Big Idea complement ongoing opportunities for advancing research and education in data-intensive science and engineering. PIs are encouraged to consider applying to the following core and crosscutting programs as well:

 
Finally, NSF anticipates additional relevant programs to be announced later in 2019 or in 2020.

NSF_fairness
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: N/A
Sponsor Deadline: N/A
Award Amount: N/A
 
With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), CISE invites principal investigators (PIs) to submit proposals to its core programs [spanning the   Computer and Network Systems (CNS) Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) , and   Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS)   divisions and the   Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) ] that contribute to discovery in research and practice related to fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) in computer and information science and engineering. Specifically, CISE is interested in receiving, through these programs:
 
  • Proposals pertaining to general topics in computer and information science and engineering while also integrating or applying approaches to advance FEAT; and
  • Proposals whose primary foci are on methods, techniques, tools, and evaluation practices as means to explore implications for FEAT.
 
In explorations and use of FEAT, PIs are strongly encouraged to select and articulate their own disciplinary or interdisciplinary definitions consistent or aligned with these concepts. This DCL is not a special competition or a new program. Proposals responsive to this DCL will be reviewed with other proposals submitted to CISE's core program solicitations and in accordance with NSF's merit review criteria as well as any additional solicitation-specific review criteria identified in the corresponding solicitations.
NSFDCL_stemworkforce
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of proposal
Sponsor Deadline: varies; please see details
Award Amount: varies; please see details
 
NSF seeks proposals that will broadly inform development of personalized learning systems or generalize the research results generated during the deployment of online courses. This could be accomplished either by using the data generated by those systems or by studying the systems themselves. NSF encourages innovative educational research and development proposals that will help the nation educate the STEM workforce of the future. For example, proposals may address topics including but not limited to:
 
  • effective design of personalized learning systems for STEM education at any level;
  • factors that increase persistence, motivation, self-efficacy, and retention of learners;
  • the influence of public/private partnerships on workforce preparation;
  • the design of educational interventions that meet workplace expectations for knowledge and competencies; and
  • measuring the effectiveness of these interventions for different audiences.
 
Proposals responding to this DCL should be made through one of the existing NSF programs listed below. Supplemental funding requests responding to this DCL for existing awards in the programs listed below are also welcome. To determine whether a research topic is within the scope of this DCL, principal investigators are strongly encouraged to contact the managing NSF Program Officer(s) of the participating program(s) to which they plan to submit their proposal. These programs include:
 

NSFDCLPhotonics
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: varies by award
Award Amount: varies by award

With this Dear Colleague letter (DCL), the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) and the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) within the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation continue to encourage innovative exploratory and translational research by academic researchers and small businesses in all aspects of integrated photonics that utilize the current silicon photonics capabilities resident in AIM Photonics. Research projects utilizing the AIM Photonics fabrication process technologies via multi-project wafer runs should have an objective to bring a specific innovation to integrated photonics circuits and components or to demonstrate a new approach that uses integrated photonics as its differentiator. Examples of such challenges may include:
  • Research into new applications of PICs that have promise of breakthrough performance due to the use of an integrated photonic component;
  • New devices that are realizable within AIM Photonics standardized integrated silicon photonics processes;
  • PIC implementations that have innovative contributions to advancements of photonics circuits (i.e., low power, greater bandwidths and dynamic ranges, better tolerances, new topologies, etc.);
  • Innovative design approaches and new models of integrated photonics devices/circuits; and
  • Materials and attachment technologies for incorporating integrated photonics into novel packages.
Academic researchers   who plan on utilizing the capabilities of AIM Photonics may submit unsolicited proposals to the ECCS Electronic, Photonic, and Magnetic Devices (EPMD) core program via FastLane or Grants.gov at any time with no deadline
( https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=245720&org=ECCS ). Proposals responding to a specific solicitation must follow the solicitation's specified deadline date. Submission as CAREER proposals can be accepted by ECCS, with the solicitation deadline in July each year. 
NSFDCL_MODULUS
Models for Uncovering Rules and Unexpected Phenomena in Biological Systems (MODULUS)
OSP/FAS/SEAS Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of full proposal
Sponsor Deadline: April 1, 2020 (for FY20 funding)
Award Amount: no specified limit; budgets to be appropriate for the scope of the project proposed

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS), in collaboration with the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB), seeks to promote interdisciplinary research that enables novel mathematical and computational approaches that capture and explore the full range of mechanisms and biological variability needed to better understand biological systems behavior across multiple scales. Funding opportunities are available in fiscal years FY2019 and FY2020 to provide support for proposals from interdisciplinary teams comprised of mathematical, computational, and biological scientists to develop  MOD els for  U ncovering Ru l es and  U nexpected Phenomena in Biological  S ystems ( MODULUS ). This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) is to encourage researchers involved in the biosciences and the mathematical sciences to collaborate formatively in biological investigations using novel mechanistic mathematical models to guide biological exploration and discovery of new rules in living systems.
 
Proposals funded through this DCL are anticipated to cultivate innovative modes of collaboration among researchers working at the interface of mathematics and molecular and cellular biology, with an emphasis on systems-scale integration. Each proposal submitted in response to this DCL should address a current state-of-the-research challenge and describe a strategy for formative integration of mathematical and biological understanding to address the challenge. In addition, the proposal should describe the unique interdisciplinary training opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers working on the project. Proposals in response to this DCL should be submitted to either DMS via the  Mathematical Biology Program Description   or the MCB solicitation,  NSF 18-585 , directed to the Systems and Synthetic Biology program (8011). The proposal title should be prefaced with "MODULUS:". The MCB solicitation accepts proposals to core programs or to a Rules of Life (RoL) track. Submission to either track is permissible given that the guidance as detailed in the solicitation ( NSF 18-585 ) for each is followed. For proposals submitted to MCB and targeted for the RoL track, a second program in another BIO Division must  also be identified.

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (NSF: CISE)
NSFCise_FoMR
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Deadline: November 15, 2019 - November 20, 2019
Award Amount:
up to $500,000 over up to 3 years

The confluence of transistor scaling, increases in the number of architecture designs per process generation, the slowing of clock frequency growth, and recent success in research exploiting thread-level parallelism (TLP) and data-level parallelism (DLP) all point to an increasing opportunity for innovative microarchitecture techniques and methodologies in delivering performance growth in the future. The NSF/Intel Partnership on Foundational Microarchitecture Research will support transformative microarchitecture research targeting improvements in instructions per cycle (IPC). This solicitation seeks microarchitecture technique innovations beyond simplistic, incremental scaling of existing microarchitectural structures. Specifically, FoMR seeks to advance research that has the following characteristics: (1) high IPC techniques ranging from microarchitecture to code generation; (2) "microarchitecture turbo" techniques that marshal chip resources and system memory bandwidth to accelerate sequential or single-threaded programs; and (3) techniques to support efficient compiler code generation. Advances in these areas promise to provide significant performance improvements that continue the trends characterized by Moore's Law.
NSFcise_other 
Other NSF: CISE Opportunities 

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences (NSF: MPS)
  OtherNSFMPS 
NSF: MPS Opportunities 
National Science Foundation: Directorate for Engineering (NSF: ENG)
NSFeng_PFI
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline for Research Partnership Track: October 28, 2019 by 11:30 AM
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: December 23, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: January 8, 2020
Award Amount: up to $250,000 for 18-24 months for the Technology Translation Track; up to $550,000 for 36 months for the Research Partnership Track
 
The Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Program within the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) offers researchers from all disciplines of science and engineering funded by NSF the opportunity to perform translational research and technology development, catalyze partnerships and accelerate the transition of discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace for societal benefit. This solicitation offers two broad tracks:
 
  1. The Technology Translation (PFI-TT) track offers the opportunity to translate prior NSF-funded research results in any field of science or engineering into technological innovations with promising commercial potential and societal impact. PFI-TT supports commercial potential demonstration projects for academic research outputs in any NSF-funded science and engineering discipline. This demonstration is achieved through proof-of-concept, prototyping, technology development and/or scale-up work.
  2. The Research Partnerships (PFI-RP) track seeks to achieve the same goals as the PFI-TT track by supporting instead complex, multi-faceted technology development projects that are typically beyond the scope of a single researcher or institution and require a multi-organizational, interdisciplinary, synergistic collaboration. A PFI-RP project requires the creation of partnerships between academic researchers and third-party organizations such as industry, non-academic research organizations, federal laboratories, public or non-profit technology transfer organizations or other universities.
 
The intended outcomes of both PFI-TT and PFI-RP tracks are: a) the commercialization of new intellectual property derived from NSF-funded research outputs; b) the creation of new or broader collaborations with industry (including increased corporate sponsored research); c) the licensing of NSF-funded research outputs to third party corporations or to start-up companies funded by a PFI team; and d) the training of future innovation and entrepreneurship leaders.
 
Eligibility:  All proposals submitted to the PFI program must meet a lineage requirement under one of the following two paths:
 
  1. NSF-supported research results: The PI or a co-PI must have had an NSF award that ended no more than seven (7) years prior to the full proposal deadline date or be a current NSF award recipient. The proposed technology development project must be derived from the research results and/or discoveries from this underlying NSF award; OR
  1. NSF-supported customer discovery results through the NSF I-Corps Teams Program: The PI or a co-PI must have been a member of an award under the NSF I-Corps Teams Program. The PI or co-PI must have fully completed the training provided under the I-Corps Team award within the past four (4) years. The customer discovery activities performed under the NSF-funded I-Corps award must be based on the technology that is proposed to be translated within the PFI proposal.
 
Please Note:  There is no limit to the number of applications to the Technology Translation Track but Harvard is limited to submitting only one application to the Research Partnerships Track. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research will conduct the internal competition to select the Harvard nominee for the Research Partnerships Track. To be considered for the Harvard nomination for the Research Partnerships Track, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal via the link above. The NSF solicitation for the PFI program is available  here .
NSF:ENG
Other NSF: ENG Opportunities
National Science Foundation: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary
NSFCross_NRT
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: September 23, 2019 by 12:00 PM
Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent: December 6, 2019
Award Amount: up to $3,000,000 for up to 5 years
 
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The NRT program seeks proposals that explore ways for graduate students in research-based master's and doctoral degree programs to develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers. The program is dedicated to the effective training of STEM graduate students in high priority interdisciplinary research areas through the use of a comprehensive traineeship model that is innovative, evidence-based, and aligned with changing workforce and research needs.
 
Proposals are requested in any interdisciplinary or  convergent   research theme of national priority, with special emphasis on one of six high priority areas ( NSF Research Big Ideas ):  

  • Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR)
  • The Future of Work at the Human Technology Frontier (HTF)
  • Navigating the New Arctic (NNA)
  • Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (WOU)
  • The Quantum Leap: Leading the Next Quantum Revolution (QL)
  • Understanding the Rules of Life: Predicting Phenotype (ROL)
 
An individual may serve as Lead Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on only one proposal submitted to the NRT program per annual competition. The PI must be on the faculty of the submitting institution.
 
Please Note:   This is a limited submission opportunity. Harvard University is limited to participating in no more than two proposals in consideration for this opportunity. Participation includes serving as the lead organization, non-lead organization, or subawardee on any proposal. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research is facilitating the internal application process to identify proposals. To be considered for the Harvard nomination, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal  here.   The NSF RFA for the NRT program is available  here .
NSFCross_CyberPhysical
Cyber-Physical Systems
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Submission Window: September 12, 2019 - September 26, 2019 (Frontier); The deadline for Small and Medium grants has passed.  
Award Amount: $1.2M - $7M (Frontier)

The Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) program aims to develop the core research needed to engineer complex CPS, some of which may also require dependable, high-confidence, or provable behaviors. Core research areas of the program include control, data analytics, autonomy, design, information management, internet of things (IoT), mixed initiatives including human-in- or on-the-loop, networking, privacy, real-time systems, safety, security, and verification. By abstracting from the particulars of specific systems and application domains, the CPS program seeks to reveal cross-cutting, fundamental scientific and engineering principles that underpin the integration of cyber and physical elements across all application domains. The program additionally supports the development of methods, tools, and hardware and software components based upon these cross-cutting principles, along with validation of the principles via prototypes and testbeds. This program also fosters a research community that is committed to advancing education and outreach in CPS and accelerating the transition of CPS research into the real world.
NSFCross_MRI
FAS/SEAS Pre-Proposal Deadline: September 27, 2019 by 12:00PM
Sponsor Deadline (if selected to submit): January 21, 2020
Award Amount: Up to $4,000,000. Cost sharing of 30% of the total project costs is required.
 
The Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program serves to increase access to multi-user scientific and engineering instrumentation for research and research training in our nation's institutions of higher education and not-for-profit scientific/engineering research organizations. An MRI award supports the acquisition or development of a multi-user research instrument that is, in general, too costly and/or not appropriate for support through other NSF programs. Additionally, an MRI award is expected to enhance research training of students who will become the next generation of instrument users, designers and builders. This is a limited submission opportunity and Harvard may submit up to three proposals in the "tracks" as defined below, with no more than two submissions in Track 1 and no more than one submission in Track 2.
  • Track 1: Proposals requesting funds from NSF greater than or equal to $100,000 and less than $1,000,000. Proposals that request funds from NSF less than $100,000 may also be accepted for the disciplines of mathematics or social, behavioral and economic sciences.
  • Track 2: Proposals requesting funds from NSF greater than or equal to $1,000,000 up to and including $4,000,000.

Please Note: To be considered for one the three Harvard nominations, potential applicants from FAS and SEAS must first submit a pre-proposal online using the link above no later than September 27, 2019. Questions about this opportunity and the internal selection process may be directed to Erin Hale ( erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu , 617-496-5252) or Susan Gomes ( sgomes@fas.harvard.edu , 617-496-9448).
NSFCross_Waterman
Nomination Deadline: October 21, 2019
Award Amount: $1,000,000
 
The Alan T. Waterman Award honors an outstanding young researcher in any field of science or engineering supported by the National Science Foundation. The awardee receives a grant of $1 million over five years for scientific research or advanced study in any field of science, plus a medal and other recognition.
 
Eligibility criteria include:
 
  1. Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and must be 40 years old or younger, OR not more than ten years beyond the receipt of the Ph.D. degree by December 31, 2019.
  2. Candidates should have demonstrated exceptional individual achievements in scientific or engineering research of sufficient quality to place them in front of their peers. Criteria include originality, innovation, and significant impact on the field.
  3. Renominations may be submitted via an updated nomination form, or may be resubmitted the year following their original submission from the Alan T. Waterman homepage using the existing nomination and references.
  4. Candidates identified for final review by the selection Committee, and who remain eligible under selection criteria (a) above, will automatically be in considered in the next year's review cycle.
NSFCross_MLWiNS
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: October 22, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: October 29, 2019
Award Amount: $300,000 - $1.5M over up to 3 years

This program seeks to accelerate fundamental, broad-based research on wireless-specific machine learning (ML) techniques, towards a new wireless system and architecture design, which can dynamically access shared spectrum, efficiently operate with limited radio and network resources, and scale to address the diverse and stringent quality-of-service requirements of future wireless applications. In parallel, this program also targets research on reliable distributed ML by addressing the challenge of computation over wireless edge networks to enable ML for wireless and future applications. Model-based approaches for designing the wireless network stack have proven quite efficient in delivering the networks in wide use today; research enabled by this program is expected to identify realistic problems that can be best solved by ML and to address fundamental questions about expected improvements from using ML over model-based methods. Proposals may address one or more Research Vectors (RVs): ML for Wireless Networks; ML for Spectrum Management; and Distributed ML over Wireless Edge Networks.
 
NSFCross_CSSI
OSP Deadline: October 25, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: November 1, 2019
Award Amount:  Estimated program budget, number of awards, and average award size/duration are subject to the availability of funds. Up to 25 Elements awards, and up to 10 Framework Implementations awards are anticipated. Up to $15,000,000 is expected to be available for Elements awards, and up to $31,500,000 is expected to be available for Framework Implementations awards.
 
The Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) umbrella program seeks to enable funding opportunities that are flexible and responsive to the evolving and emerging needs in cyberinfrastructure. This program continues the CSSI program by removing the distinction between software and data   elements/framework implementations, and instead emphasizing integrated cyberinfrastructure services, quantitative metrics with targets for delivery and usage of these services, and community creation. This particular CSSI solicitation requests only Elements and Framework Implementations classes of awards. 
  • Elements: These awards target small groups that will create and deploy robust services for which there is a demonstrated need that will advance one or more significant areas of science and engineering.
  • Framework Implementations: These awards target larger, interdisciplinary teams organized around the development and application of common services aimed at solving common research problems faced by NSF researchers in one or more areas of science and engineering, resulting in a sustainable community framework providing Cyberinfrastructure (CI) services to a diverse community or communities.

Prospective Principal Investigators (PIs) should be aware that this is a multi-directorate activity and that they are encouraged to submit proposals with broad, interdisciplinary interests. PIs interested in responding to this solicitation are encouraged to refer to core program descriptions, Dear Colleague Letters, and recently posted descriptions on directorate and divisional home pages to gain insight about the priorities for the relevant areas of science and engineering to which their proposals may be responsive. Finally, it is strongly recommended that prospective PIs contact program officer(s) from the list of Cognizant Program Officers in the division(s) that typically support the scientists and engineers who would make use of the proposed work, to gain insight into the priorities for the relevant areas of science and engineering to which their proposals should be responsive. As part of contacting Cognizant Program Officers, prospective PIs are also encouraged to ascertain that the focus and budget of their proposed work are appropriate for this solicitation.
NSFCross_EFRI
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Letter of Intent: November 4, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Preliminary Proposal: December 2, 2019
Award Amount: up to $2M over 4 years

The Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program of the NSF Directorate for Engineering (ENG) serves a critical role in helping ENG focus on important emerging areas in a timely manner. This solicitation is a funding opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of researchers to embark on rapidly advancing frontiers of fundamental engineering research. For this solicitation, the NSF will consider proposals that aim to investigate emerging frontiers in one of the following two research areas:
  • Distributed Chemical Manufacturing (DCheM)
  • Engineering the Elimination of End-of-Life Plastics (E3P)

This solicitation will be coordinated with the Directorate for Biological Sciences, the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences and the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. EFRI seeks proposals with transformative ideas that represent an opportunity for a significant shift in fundamental engineering knowledge with a strong potential for long term impact on national needs or a grand challenge. The proposals must also meet the detailed requirements delineated in this solicitation.

FURTHER INFORMATION:   The Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities (EFMA) Office will host an informational webinar on Wednesday, September 18, 2019 at 1:00pm Eastern to discuss the EFRI program and answer questions about the FY 2020 solicitation. Details on how to join this webinar will be posted on the  EFMA website .
NSFCross_doe
NSF/DOE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering *
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 8, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: November 18, 2019
Award Amount:
$50,000 to $250,000 per year with a typical duration of 3 years

Plasma Physics is a study of matter and physical systems whose intrinsic properties are governed by collective interactions of large ensembles of free charged particles. 99.9% of the visible Universe is thought to consist of plasmas. The underlying physics of the collective behavior in plasmas has applications to space physics and astrophysics, materials science, applied mathematics, fusion science, accelerator science, and many branches of engineering. The National Science Foundation (NSF), with participation of the Directorates for Engineering, Geosciences, and Mathematical and Physical Sciences, and the Department of Energy, Office of Science, Fusion Energy Sciences are continuing the joint Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering begun in FY1997 and renewed several times since. As stated in the original solicitation (NSF 97-39), which is superseded by the present solicitation, the goal of the Partnership is to enhance basic plasma science research and education in this broad, multidisciplinary field by coordinating efforts and combining resources of the two agencies. The current solicitation also encourages submission of proposals to perform basic plasma experiments at NSF and/or DOE supported user facilities, including facilities located at DOE national laboratories, designed to serve the needs of the broader plasma science and engineering community.
NSFCross_inclusion
Inclusion Across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES): Planning Grants *
FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: November 22, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: December 3, 2019
Award Amount: up to $100,000 for 12-16 months
 
Through this solicitation, NSF Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science (NSF INCLUDES) will support Planning Grants to build capacity for the development of collaborative infrastructure to: (a) facilitate innovative partnerships, networks, and theories of action for broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at scale and (b) lead to the establishment of future centers, alliances, or other large-scale networks to address a broadening participation challenge. While this solicitation is open to all, NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilots are especially encouraged to apply, as a Planning Grant could serve as an intermediate conduit for bringing their exploratory pilot work to scale.
OtherNSFCross2 
Other NSF: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary Opportunities
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For assistance, please contact:

Erin Hale
Senior Research Development Officer
erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu | 617-496-5252

Jennifer Corby
Research Development Officer
jcorby@fas.harvard.edu | 617-495-1590


Research Development | Research Administration Services | research.fas.harvard.edu